Description of Related Art
Camera-equipped mobile phones with resolutions rivaling standalone cameras have become the norm, making social interactions richer with the addition of images and videos that capture the moment. Concurrent with this change, applications for using a camera as an input medium for specific use cases are also emerging, similar to text input using a keypad.
For instance, FIG. 10 illustrates that some search engines on mobile devices place a camera icon alongside a text input search box to encourage users to take a picture and use the picture to serve as input for the search engine, instead of text-input-based search. The search engine may further use the user's location to aid the picture. The application then displays the search results as in any conventional text-based search engine. GOOGLE “goggles” similarly places a camera icon adjacent to the text input box. A user uses the application to take a picture of a scene, and performs a search using the capture image or text. The application captures all text in the range of view and uses the text as input to search. The application then displays the results as in a conventional text-based search engine. Commerce-centric applications use a camera as an input means to take an image snapshot of a barcode to provide comparative pricing information. Some mobile devices are experimenting with having a hardware camera button, similar to keypad hardware for text input, to launch a camera and perform typical actions such as sharing a picture with a friend or upload the picture to a photo sharing site.
In an MIT Media Lab project on wearable computers, the “sixth sense” device system uses a camera as an input means to sample the environment. The system aims to bring the digital world to the real world and vice versa. Gesture interfaces with hands serve as cues to capture an image and projections of a phone keypad on the palm of the user's hands. The gesture interface is used as a means to enter a phone number and make a call. Furthermore, the gesture interface is used to find additional information about an object such as a book, as the user looks at the book, and to project price information, etc. on the physical book. The MIT Media Lab project is not a phone-based interface, though it uses a camera as an input interface to sample the surrounding visual environment and interact with it.
Users have to be aware of applications that are capable of using camera as the input medium. More importantly, users must pick the right application for a particular use case. As illustrated in FIG. 10, some phones offer a choice of actions after an image is taken such as uploading the image, saving to a photo library, or emailing to friends. This actions list could expand to include more use cases (commerce enabling, image input based search etc.). One drawback of such an approach, particularly on a mobile device, is inundating the user with a multitude of choices which makes the process so cumbersome. This difficulty thereby decreases the likelihood of its mass acceptance as a powerful and easy alternative to text input. Furthermore, adding more actions to an actions list would make it appear easier to choose a specific application up front than having to navigate through a long list of potential actions in a centralized input interface once a picture is taken.